PDA

View Full Version : Changes in thirty-two years



Brushy Sage
02-14-2005, 20:39
A friend has sent me the first issue (Spring 1973) of the magazine of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. Edward B. Garvey made the club president's report for 1972. The club was deeply involved in AT land acquisition in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Advertisements gave the names of manufacturers of equipment and supplies for hiking and camping. How many of these companies did not survive?

Listed were: Kelty, North Face, Class 5, Alpenlite, Gerry, Jan Sport, Ascente, Mountain Master, Alpine Designs, Lowa, Vasque, Raichle, Privetta, Galibier, Chouinard, SMC, Leeper, Forrest, B.A.T., Eiger, Interalp, Edelrid, Mammut, Bonna Haugen, Trak, Vermont Tubbs, Sherpa, Hipp, Old Town, Prijon, Easy Rider, Jon Hyland, Kober.

Brushy Sage
02-15-2005, 08:21
A friend has sent me the first issue (Spring 1973) of the magazine of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. Edward B. Garvey made the club president's report for 1972. The club was deeply involved in AT land acquisition in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Advertisements gave the names of manufacturers of equipment and supplies for hiking and camping. How many of these companies did not survive?

Listed were: Kelty, North Face, Class 5, Alpenlite, Gerry, Jan Sport, Ascente, Mountain Master, Alpine Designs, Lowa, Vasque, Raichle, Privetta, Galibier, Chouinard, SMC, Leeper, Forrest, B.A.T., Eiger, Interalp, Edelrid, Mammut, Bonna Haugen, Trak, Vermont Tubbs, Sherpa, Hipp, Old Town, Prijon, Easy Rider, Jon Hyland, Kober.

Is anyone still using equipment from a manufacturer that no longer exists?

Brushy Sage
02-17-2005, 10:22
What I'm realizing is that not many Whiteblaze readers can relate to what was happening in 1973, which was, indeed, before many of you were born. It just dawned on me last night that I was on my second tour in Vietnam during this time. I'm wondering how many Vietnam vets are still around and connected to the AT, or to Whiteblaze.

Rain Man
02-17-2005, 16:03
Is anyone still using equipment from a manufacturer that no longer exists?

Yep, both my wife and I have matching Holubar sleeping bars. Down. Weigh about 5 lbs each. Must be rated to minus 40 or some such. We got them in Colorado about 1975-76.
:sun
Rain Man


.

RockyTrail
02-17-2005, 17:27
What I'm realizing is that not many Whiteblaze readers can relate to what was happening in 1973, which was, indeed, before many of you were born. It just dawned on me last night that I was on my second tour in Vietnam during this time. I'm wondering how many Vietnam vets are still around and connected to the AT, or to Whiteblaze.
Brushy Sage, I remember a lot of those old company names no longer around, but in '73 I was a poor teenager with absolutely no money at all so got by with donated GI or Boy Scout equipment and never owned any of the good stuff. I wore general-store work boots, canvas pack, and cotton clothes/jeans, I remember seeing somebody with a red nylon external-frame pack and thinking "Whoa that guy has some real space-age gear!" But I do remember many hikers had the same adventuresome spirit found today...they just have a lot better gear. My hat's off to all you Vietnam vets, we were pulling for you fellows the whole time, thank you for serving our country.

MileMonster
02-17-2005, 17:38
I assume Chouinard is from Ivan Chouinard who started Black Diamond (there's a little "C" in the diamond logo) and then Patagonia?

Dances with Mice
02-17-2005, 18:00
In '73 I would have been high school, 11th grade, and that summer I bought my first backpack. From Sears, 'Hillary' brand if I remember right. That was about the best you could find back then in a Houston suburb. I see there's one on e-bay now for 0.50! I kept and used it for about 20 years.

By the time my son joined Scouts enough zippers had stopped working that I had to replace it, so I upgraded (?) to a Camp Trails 'Wilderness'. That was a monster external frame with more pockets than a herd of kangaroos. That pack is probably still being used in the Scout Troop where I donated it after my first section hike of GA.

The Weasel
02-17-2005, 22:04
Dances with Mice mistakenly attributes his quotation to Harpo Marx, instead of Marcel Marceaux. Marx actually said, " !"

The Weasel

Dances with Mice
02-17-2005, 22:16
Marceaux paraphrased the original quotation.

The Weasel
02-17-2005, 22:19
Marx ruined it by adding music.

Dances with Mice
02-17-2005, 22:29
Marx ruined it by adding music. No, Lennon added music. I am an unrepentant Marxist-Lennonist.

I think they were both still going strong in '73 (clinging to the topic by my fingernails)

The Weasel
02-17-2005, 22:52
Another John Lennon lie!!!!!! HE DID NOT ADD THE MUSIC. PAUL DID. PAUL PAUL PAUL PAUL PAUL. Did you get that? PAUL. NOT JOHN. OK?

Sheesh.


The Weasel

Dances with Mice
02-17-2005, 23:47
PAUL PAUL PAUL PAUL PAUL. Did you get that? PAUL.Oh, you must mean Anka. Or Rhymin' Simon?

I wish I'd kept my gear list from '73. I know I used a polypropylene tarp because a good backpacking tent was about $100, an unimaginable sum for someone earning $1.60 per hour sacking groceries after school. I had a bit of white netting from a fabric store as a mosquito net. Stiff, bridal veil material. My groundcloth was a bit of plastic I swiped from a construction site on my bike ride home from school. I was into lightweight shelters before lightweight was cool!

My proudest possession was a DUCK down mummy sleeping bag that I saved forever and bought at an Army-Navy surplus store that was always having a "Going Out of Business" sale - for $30! I wonder why duck down went out of fashion, or was it ever in?

I also had a 2 D-cell flashlight, a tall spray can of OFF repellant, used a blue enamaled iron cooking pot and mug, carried a whole bar of ivory soap in a plastic container so I could slather the outside of my pot before cooking over a wood fire. I also had a couple Brillo pads in a plastic sandwich bag for clean-up, a metal box with enough first aid supplies to equip a small town clinic, and 'waffle-stompers' - suede leather boots that doubled as my school shoes. Army surplus canteen and poncho, of course. A knife that could have skinned a grizzly, a small bowsaw, and strike anywhere matches carefully dipped into melted wax and stored in a metal cylinderical waterproof match holder.

I did try to save weight, tho - I only carried a dish towel instead of an entire bath towel. I had a nylon windbreaker but everything else was cotton, including long underwear, sweatshirt, and grey gym socks. Bear bag rope was braided polypro ski rope. I squabbled with my mom who was convinced I needed a complete change of clothes for every day of my trip. Water treatment was iodine tablets because that's all there was. I had a "pocket" radio, which must have been built for pockets bigger than any I had. An Instamatic camera, but I would have taken a 35mm if I could have afforded one, they cost almost as much as backpacking tents then. Kind of like they do now, come to think of it.

And I know I had a checklist that I went over carefully before each trip. Some things never change.

The Weasel
02-17-2005, 23:54
Alright. But I'll have the last word on this:

"
"
"
"_____"

So there.


the Weasel

ARambler
02-18-2005, 00:34
Most of my gear was from Frostline. A little company in Boulder that sold fabic and patterns. Backpacking was growing quickly in the 70's. The first REI catalog I saw in 72 celibrated thier 100,000 member, since ca 1936. When I got enough money for my first order in 76, I was over 500,000.

tombone
02-18-2005, 01:09
yes, i carried the sears hillary III pack to maine in '76-6 external pockets plus a map flap on the back. and i had a goose down sleeping bag-all the scouts i hiked with used versa-tarps. you could attach the grommets where you wanted to, and then we strung them up sometimes like a dining fly. the waffle stomper work boots were the rule-again sears brand, and around $25-30. the better ones had vibram soles. all cotton, which is something i still enjoy. can't handle the stench of poly. i'll carry a change and get out of the wet stuff as soon as i stop. and the pocket radios used 9 volt batteries which were sometimes hard to find in small towns. white gas or unleaded fuel for the svea stove, and lots of time with the cleaning needle. primed it with the gas, forget the paste. ditched that stuff after if broke in my pack the first time. cotton washcloth, 110 instamatic camera, and always ate off the bottom of menus during the too infrequent restaurant meals. hostels were generally the right price. sometimes showers were a buck or 2. i think the sleeping platforms in the whites were a buck, so stealth camping was in although the term hadn't been hatched yet.
didnt dream of carrying plastic-travelers cheques, some of which i mailed ahead in resupply boxes, and always reversed the charges on long distance.
stamps were cheap, postcards were cheaper, and the journal was kept in a 5"x8" or maybe it was 4x6 3 ring notebook. extra ounces there for sure!

RockyTrail
02-18-2005, 11:35
This is fun recalling this stuff...here's a partial list (best I can remember) of my gear list from 1973.

1. Tent: Army surplus "pup" tent, green canvas with the waterproofing all worn off. When it rained you didn't dare touch the inside wall especially in the middle where the waterproofing was virtually gone. Weight: 12-15lbs?

2. Pack: Boy Scout "Camper" pack; my best piece of equipment. A khaki-canvas cotton top-load pack bag with leather straps mounted on an aircraft aluminum tubular frame. No hip belt and straps that cut your shoulders. I still have this pack, dry-rotted none the less!

3. Bag: A Kmart rectangular 100% cotton summer bag, tan outside with pheasants and bird dogs printed on the inside. Absorbed water like a roll of paper towels. Weight: 7 lbs?

4. Pad : None.
5. Groundcloth: heavy Plastic sheet

Metal 2-D cell flashlight
Army surplus or Boy scout mess kit
Army surplus or Boy Scout canteen (1 Qt)
Boots: Leather brougham high-top work boots
Socks: Cotton tube socks
Hatchet (4 lb) for chopping firewood (all cooking on fires)
Blue jeans
T-shirts
....and a LOT more that I can't remember.

All this stuff was tied onto the pack with cotton or jute rope.
It was a pain to tie and untie the tent, bag etc. and it always migrated sideways after a few miles and had to be re-adjusted. Total pack weight probably 50-60 lbs, at the time I weighed 187 lbs. (Ugh!) :)

Kerosene
02-18-2005, 14:32
My 1973 gear list looks pretty similar to that of RockyTrail:

I'm re-creating this from memory, but here's what I brought on my first two section hikes (April 1973: DWG to Unionville; April 1974: Duncannon to Lehigh Gap). Of course, some of these selections were due to inexperience, but many others were due to now outdated solutions:

Boots: Really, really high-topped green leather work boots, but they had one of the first Vibram soles around (I remember they froze solid one night and it took me 45 minutes to warm them up enough to get on my feet in the morning).

Pack: Sears' latest nylon external frame with hipbelt, maybe 3,000 cubes (very narrow profile), but it had 4 side pockets for "stuff". Sleeping bag shock-corded to the bottom of the frame beneath the pack.

Sleeping Bag: A monstrous synthetic rectangular bag in 1973 (it had to weigh almost 5 pounds), replaced by a 3-pound duck down/feather nylon mummy from Sears.

Groundcloth: Big sheet of white plasticpainter's dropcloth.

Sleeping Pad: Some sort of half-inch closed cell foam shortie pad.

Stove: The venerable and indestructible Optimus 8R (24 oz. easy, plus fuel bottle). I still have this stove lying around somewhere in my garage.

Cook Kit: An aluminum pot and tea kettle from my grandfather's camping gear.

Water Filter: Nothing.

Shirt: Cotton T-shirt, but I also had a bright red, early generation Duofold "River Driver" shirt for warmth.

Pants: Dungarees, one pair to walk in and a second for camp!

Jacket: Jeans jacket(!) in 1973 (I'm amazed I survived (http://www.whiteblaze.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/65/)), replaced by a Eddie Bauer down sweater in 1974 that was a real luxury.

Socks: Wool hunting socks, but with a lot of cotton tube socks as liners (fortunately it wasn't too warm in early spring).

Raingear: Coated nylon poncho that flapped a lot in the wind and didn't keep my pants dry (the later addition of coated chaps didn't help a whole lot).

Shelter: That first hike we were planning to roll up in our plastic ground cloths to stay dry in a rain (can you say condensation?). Good thing it didn't really rain. The second hike we had an emergency plastic tube tent but relied on shelters (good thing they weren't full).

Hiking Poles: Hey, we were young and our knees didn't need any help!


Total pack weight with food and water was something north of 40 pounds, but less than 50.

borntired
02-18-2005, 15:04
I went to Philmont in 1966. A bunch of scouts from a 4-county area made the trip. We had several “shakedown” hikes that must have been good training, because when I arrived in New Mexico, it seemed at the time I was carrying next to nothing:
A poncho doubling as a groundsheet.
Extra shorts and T-shirt, and a sweat shirt.
Couple pairs of socks.
A flashlight and plastic camera.
An army surplus mess kit.
One quart surplus canteen on a web belt.
Pocket knife.
Hand towel and small bar of soap.
Map (on which I marked the route, and I still have).
Other than sleeping bag, Yucca pack and beltless aluminum frame, that was it.
Even so, before we took off on foot I was given a 6-pound floorless canvas tent and some dehydrated food to carry, and the whole works then weighed 35 pounds. I remember this vividly because each pack was weighed and the kid next to me was razzed cause his weighed only 29 pounds.

Clark Fork
02-18-2005, 21:56
Most of my gear was from Frostline. A little company in Boulder that sold fabic and patterns. Backpacking was growing quickly in the 70's. The first REI catalog I saw in 72 celibrated thier 100,000 member, since ca 1936. When I got enough money for my first order in 76, I was over 500,000.My REI days go way back. Does anyone have a number lower than 32,42*?. I joined December 1965. I get some double takes from the sales clerks, I guess in amazment I am still walking around.

I had a Eureka Draw-Tite tent with external aluminum poles. I think it weighed 12 lbs and as far as I know it was the first of its kind. College graduation present in June of 1963. It went with me on one of my hikes up Katahdin back in the late sixties. It went down the White River in Arkansas sometime in 1970 when my son got caught in a flood. It was great tent. My son made it back safely but I mourned the loss of my great tent. I still have a Moss bivy. I don't see that Moss is still around.

I laugh when I think about my sleeping bag, a huge rectangular job I got from Army Surplus. I wish I knew the brand. It ended it days as a dog bed.

I still have some of the old gear. There is a cylinder to keep matches in, I could never throw away. I still have my knife,fork and spood set that clipped together. My dad etched my name on it so it is a treasure.

Ok, who has REI lower number?

Clark Fork in Western Montana

Brushy Sage
02-19-2005, 10:00
No REI number. In the early 1960s I did have a family size tent with externel aluminum frame, from Sears. The first time I set it up, one of the legs was too short. I didn't know it would telescope, so I found an old stump to put under it. I noticed that the park ranger looked at it "strangely" but he didn't say anything.

Kozmic Zian
02-19-2005, 10:15
What I'm realizing is that not many Whiteblaze readers can relate to what was happening in 1973, which was, indeed, before many of you were born. It just dawned on me last night that I was on my second tour in Vietnam during this time. I'm wondering how many Vietnam vets are still around and connected to the AT, or to Whiteblaze. Yea.....Vets. Well, here's one. I was in the 1st Army Ground Combat Unit in Vietnam. The 173d Airborne Brigade, which departed from Okinawa for service in RVN in May of 1965. We opened the road (US 1) from Pleiku to Kontum, Destroyed 'D'Zone, Protected the Bien Hoa Airbase, and in General, Kicked Ass, while deployed there. I ETS'd to the 82d Airborne at Ft Bragg for the remainder of my service.

How about you Brushy? KZ@

Brushy Sage
02-19-2005, 14:37
Yea.....Vets. Well, here's one. I was in the 1st Army Ground Combat Unit in Vietnam. The 173d Airborne Brigade, which departed from Okinawa for service in RVN in May of 1965. We opened the road (US 1) from Pleiku to Kontum, Destroyed 'D'Zone, Protected the Bien Hoa Airbase, and in General, Kicked Ass, while deployed there. I ETS'd to the 82d Airborne at Ft Bragg for the remainder of my service.

How about you Brushy? KZ@

I had two tours: 1968-69, and 1972-73 -- a hospital chaplain the first tour, and with a combat aviation group the second time. More details in a private message.

Kembo
02-19-2005, 17:34
After reading this thread I had to go out to the garage and look at some of my old equipment. The equipment lists of Kerosene & Rocky Trail seems so familiar. I'm going to borrow the format from Kerosene for my equipment list from 1972.

Boots: Started out with a pair of work boots that created amazing blisters in the most unusual places. Got a pair of real hiking boots in Blacksburg that lasted to the end of the trail. By then, they were held together with duct tape & epoxy.

Pack: I started with a cheap nylon pack with a frame that was soon in pieces. It just wasn’t built for long distances. I replaced that pack with a Boyce Mountain pack from Kmart. I think it cost me $14. It lasted me till Vermont. Finally all the welds broke and I carried what was left of the pack to the next shelter cradled in my arms. I called home and my parents brought a new, identical, Kmart pack to me in a couple days.

Sleeping Bag: Another Kmart special. The lightest cotton bag they had. By Maine I could hold it up to the light & easily see through it. I carried quitted long underwear to compensate. <O:p

Ground cloth: Regulation green Boy Scout ground cloth.

Sleeping Pad: No sleeping pad

Stove: Sterno stove. Most times I would start the water to heating on the stove until I could build a fire to finish the cooking.

Cook kit: an aluminum pot from my Boy Scout mess kit and a spoon from the Boy Scout Kit.
Water filter: Iodine tablets until they ran out in Pennsylvania and they nothing.

Cloths: All cotton. Two sets. One for hiking and one for camp and going into town.
Rain Gear: None

Shelter: Carried an orange tube tent. The condensation was so bad that I cut it length wise and used it as a plastic tarp for most of the trail.

Hiking Poles: I started out with out any. Picked up a staff on the Ga/NC border & carried it to Me.